Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

ne
3.• machines by a slider switch
beneath the mouse. Offering 280
dol. It features two rnicroswitched
buttons with a claimed lifetime of
one million cycles and on anti-stat-
ic lightweight ball which can be
removed for cleaning. Price.
£39.99.
High quality from
portable printer
THE new MT730/735 portable print-
er from Mannesmann-Tally uses
thermal technology to print what
is claimed to be high quality text
Manneenan Tatty - porta ble printing
and graphics at a resolution of 300
x 300 dol.
It has1MB RAM as standard and
features H-P Laserjet and Desieet,
IBM Proprinter X24 and Epson LQ
850 emulations. Fonts are Corpora,
Maths. Swiss and Timor.
Princing may vary, but as an
example. Action Computer
Supplies of Wembley are retaling it
ot 1.684
Pricey Prestel
BRITISH Telecom has dramatically
restructured charges for its view
data information service. Presto'.
The first increase In tariffs since
1988 is a significant one. In o letter
to all Presto] subscribers 13T point
out that infl ation has risen 20 per
cent since the last Prestel price
increase.
Residential off-peak time
Charges cie being increased some
10 times higher than infl ation with
a 200 per cent increase from ip a
minute to 3p a minute. BT claim
this increase is to bring charges
more in be with costs.
The standing charge for Prestel
also increases, to £20 a quarter.
12 Amiga C omputing
The revamped pricing is signifi -
cantty better news for members of
the Micronet closed user group.
The quarterly charge increases to
E30 a quarter but off-peak time
charges ore scrapped.
In effect BT have provided two
different pricing packages for their
viewdata service.
Subscribers can opt to pay E20
a quarter and £1.80 an hour in off-
peak time charges for access to
Presto! Only. Alternatively a
Micronet subscription at £30 a
quarter will provide greater access
to the system, with the added
benefi t of no off-peak charges
Kevin Smith. Micronet marketing
manager commented Our more
canny users will notice how
favourably the costs compare
against rival services, once usage
goes past one hour a month'
The message is simple, if you ore
a Prestel subscriber who currently
pays more than £10 a month in
time charges, upgrade to
Micronet and avoid being caught
by a rather expensive British
Telecom April foots joke.
Share a printer
A NEW device from Micro Control
Systems (0602 391201) allows four
computers to shore the same printer.
The Simple-4-Swttch is mailable
in both serial and parallel versions
and con be used either automati-
cally Or manually.
Based on the MCS Simple-2-
Switch, it enters automatic mode
when first turned on. When data
comes from a computer if locks on
and passes it to the printer.
If Other users try to print while
the device is busy their data is
frozen until the printer becomes
available.
Simple-4-Switch works with all
kinds of printers and plotters. Price.
E129.
Billiards AD 3,000
PLAYING 1101Mal billiards con be
hard enough but imagine the
complexity of futuristic billiards on
on eight-sided table_ Amiga own-
ers won't hove to use their imogi-
nation for long thanks to French
games house infogrames (071-738
8199).
Due soon is Billiards 3D. a simula-
tion which includes American
pool. French pool and Fantasy
13illiards on an octagonal table.
If that isn't enough. there are
two different sets of rules for each
game and they all come in either
2D or 3D. For one or two players.
Billiards 3D re-creates the atmo-
sphere of a billiard hall in which
one player CCM vie with any of five
computer opponents willing to bet
thousands of dollars on one game.
Games can be saved and
resumed and the mouse-con-
trolled program allows a fun range
of well-simulated trick shots. Written
for infogrames by Spirit Bonanza,
Billiards 3D will be available for
Amiga 500, 1000 and 2003 and will
cost E24.99.
Mighty Mo joins
Motormouth
RENEGADE hove now taken to
the small screen. Magic Pockets.
the 131tmap Brothers' offering due
to be launched this summer,
Is being used for the phone-In
game section of popular Saturday
morning TV programme Motormouth.
With The Bitmap Kid, quickly
rechristened Mighty Mo for the
programme, the game has been
simplifi ed for television and is
voice- activated by young viewers
who ring In. First payers of the TV
version were presenters Andy
Crane and Steve Johnson and the
series will last for nine weeks.
When Magic Pockets is
launched by Renegade (071
-9214)
it will feature music from the
48 walking eyelashes herself - Betty
1Boo
One more round
ACCOLADE (071-738 1376) have
released their latest Jack Nicklaus
accessory disc. Called Great
Courses of the US Open it includes
the challenges of Pebble Beach.
Oakmont Country Club and
Ballusrol Golf Club,
Compatible with both Jack
Nicklaus Greatest 18 Holes of
Major Championship Golf and
Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf and
Course Design, Prlce1 1.99.
Masterly touch in chess programming
WHEN you have ranked as an
International Master in the com-
petitive world of chess and you
also have an interest In comput-
ing, an obvious outlet is to write
Chess programs.
Chris Whittington has both
these attributes and has put
them to good use through his
company CP Software and Its
publishing subsidiary Oxford
Softworts (099382 3463).
With 20 chess programs under
his belt. Chris achieved his greatest
success to date when his lat-
est offering recently took the title
World Personal Computer Blitz
Chess Champion.
Running on an enhanced
Amiga, the program Chess
Champion 2175X claimed its
impressive victory at the World
Microcomputer C h e s s
Championship held in Lyon,
France,
Running alongside the World
Championships for human chess
players featuring top Russian
stars, the computer programs
played off against each other,
the only human involvement
being to transmit each move
between the different machines.
Blitz chess is played in the
usual way except that all the
moves have to be completed in
10 minutes. so allowing many
games to be played in a short
space of time.
'Blitz chess is particularly chal-
lenging as moves have to be
made very quickly indeed'. said
Chris. 'Accuracy of calculation,
Chess knowledge and speed are
all of prime importance and this
result is a great measure of the
programs performance.'
In his years of competitive
chess Chris reached a level only
surpossed by the International
Grand Master grading, but gave
up competitions 20 years ago.
If you want to be realty good
at chess you hove to play it all
the time: he said, 'I stopped
playing because it was taking up
too much time when I hod Other
things to do'.
He started CP Software eight
years ago and has progressively
enhanced his programs.
'I used to be able to beat
them but it doesn•1 work like that
any longer,* he said. 'The com-
puter thinks further ahead.
Through the program, it Carries
out relatively simple evaluations
many hundreds of thousands of
times and quite complex con-
cepts emerge.•
Chess Champion 2175 for the
Amiga costs E29,95.
A me'drile